Nighthawks

10  factlets about Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Nighthawks , 1942 from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

Fine as a Homer. Before Edward Hopper finished the painting, Daniel Catton Rich, the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, called the painting “fine as a Homer” in reference to the American landscape painter. 

$3,000. Rich would later purchase the painting for the Art Institute for the sum of $3,000 (roughly $50,000 in today’s dollars) . Not a bad price for one of the museum’s most famous paintings.

It’s large. It measures roughly 2.75 by 5 feet (0.8 X 1.5 m). 

A literal title . Edward Hopper’s wife, Josephine, wrote a description of one of the customers in the painting : “Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding a cigarette”. This description may have inspired the title. 

Two words. The original title was Night Hawks as noted in Josephine’s journal.

Self-portrait. Josephine wrote a letter to her sister stating that Edward posed for the two men and she for the girl . 

Inspired by Van Gogh ? Café Terrace at Night by Vincent van Gogh was exhibited in a gallery in New York in January of 1942. Although it hasn’t been proven, it is likely that Hopper would have seen the work as it was exhibited alongside his own . 

Or inspired by Hemingway ? It has been suggested that Hopper was inspired by a short story by Ernest Hemingway, either "The Killers" , which Hopper greatly admired,  or the more philosophical "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" .

Painting loneliness. Hopper said of this painting: “Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city ” .

Where is the café? Hopper only gave a vague suggestion of where the restaurant might have been stating it “was suggested b y a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet” . Additionally, he noted that "I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger". It is likely an amalgamation of many places.